Tel. +44 (0)1273 600030 (UK)
We believe that it is our responsibility to put back into the oceans as much as we can. We run our Whale Shark Research project in conjunction with 23 other countries through a non profit organisation called www.Ecocean.com. We fly in a specialist to conduct the project during one month every year. All profits are put back into Whale Shark research, and evening talks are organised for interested guests.
We are committed to utilizing the best technologies and methodologies available while maintaining complete transparency and maximum safety, both for researchers and for the whale sharks, in data collection. Our objective is to make our project's results available for local conservation efforts and to ensure their validity through peer review and publication.
We are one of the founders of UDSEC (Utila Dive Safety and Environmental Commission) and fund everything from tourist police to reef protection & laying dive buoys. We are also heavily involved with coral regeneration, conch and Long spine Urchin project and protection of Grouper spawning grounds.
We also work closely with also work closely with 'reef' organising for members to come to Utila to conduct fish counts. This is all done in conjunction with a Marine Biologist that we have employed, who has already been rewarded with grants from Project Aware for his work.
We aim to show all divers not only the beauty of the undersea world but also how fragile it is and what everyone can do to help. In the Resort, we only serve sustainable fish in our restaurant and provide guests with one bottle of water for personal use that can be refilled 24 hours a day from a main filling station in an attempt to cut down on plastic used. At all other times we supply water for guests (on the boats, in their rooms, and at meals).
For divers, we offer a free buoyancy clinic to help reduce accidental reef damage, and during our Whale Shark season we limit our guests to a maximum of 12 people so we can cut down on any disruption to Whale Shark feeding. We have 'encounter guidelines' on the island that also help with this and plenty of educational resources (books, DVDs etc.) for guests to learn about the species they have seen and any issues affecting their survival.
We also encourage the local people to find employment outside of historical (and unsustainable) areas such as fishing, and since we have been on the island we have seen a move into tourism.
We invite every traveller who books a holiday via us to send in a review. Because we don't run the holidays they're completely independent and unedited... remember to read between the lines though, as two people on the same holiday can have different views!
